Since the Boston Red Sox traded their entire team to the Los Angeles Dodgers–minus Dustin Pedroia, Jacoby Ellsbury and Jon Lester–I’ve been thinking a lot about the Chicago Cubs‘ immediate future. I know the Cubs are in the beginning phases of a major rebuild, but I have to believe deep down that Tom Ricketts didn’t pay Theo Epstein the kind of money he did to rebuild for three years. The Cubs are a big market team and I believe they’re going to act like it. I believe the Cubs need to be active on the trade front as well as the free agent front and the Cubs should make Pedroia target number one.
I know a lot of Cubs fans love Darwin Barney, but I don’t. I don’t care much that he takes extra BP on his days off because he’s in a slump, because most hitters do that anyway. Sure, he works hard. He plays hard. That’s fine and dandy, but when it comes to straight baseball skill? Barney lacks it. I think he would be an outstanding utility infielder who can fill in at third, SS and 2B a few times a week. Defensive replacement is another skill he would have with the team moving forward. All in all, Barney cannot be the future at 2B for the Cubs if they want to win a World Series. This is why I think they need to target Pedroia immediately.
Pedroia has to be on the trade block. If the Red Sox traded Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, Josh Beckett and Nick Punto, Pedroia isn’t untouchable. He would bring a toughness to the locker room that the Cubs lack. He would bring a veteran presence with playoff and World Series success to the table, plus serve as a positive mentor for guys like Starlin Castro and Anthony Rizzo. Oh yeah, he can still play the game of baseball pretty well too. The Cubs need a guy like this and I think they should make a hard run at him this offseason.
It makes a ton of sense in a lot of different ways.
I don’t run the team, so I don’t know if this would actually happen, but I sure hope it does. We’ll see where all the MLB Trade Rumors take the Cubs this winter, but all they can do is go up from here.
